Copyright transfer in a transitional time: Karla Hahn, Ph.D. Collection Management Team Leader University of Maryland Libraries A perspective on the issues

Author rights transfer “…authors’ views on copyright may be characterised as a mixture of indifference, ignorance … and principled resentment….” 13% of authors surveyed took a “detailed interest” in the small print of the copyright agreement when they published their last article. Scholarly Communication in the Digital Environment: What do Authors Want. Ciber survey. 18 March 2004

American Library Association “1. In consideration for the publication of the Work by the Publisher in the above-referenced Journal, Author hereby grants and assigns to Publisher all rights, title, and interest in and to the Work and all copyrights therein or relating thereto…. 2. The rights granted and assigned Publisher are exclusive to the Publisher and include all rights of whatever kind or nature, now or hereafter protected by law…. 3. Publisher hereby grants to Author a royalty-free license to publish the Work in any book of which the Author is the author or editor….” Author’s agreement signed

The Johns Hopkins University Press “…you, as Author of the Article, hereby grant and transfer exclusively to the Press all rights of whatever kind to the Article…. Rights of the Author: You have the following nonexclusive rights: (1) to use the Article in your own teaching activities; (2) to publish the Article, or permit its publication, as a part of any book you may write; (3) to include the Article in your own personal or department (but not institutional) Database or on-line site….” Author’s agreement signed

Elsevier License “Rightsholder…grants Elsevier Science New York a non-exclusive license….. I retain all other rights. “ Author’s agreement signed

NASIG and Haworth Press “ Under the contract and agreements between Haworth Press and the North American Serials Interest Group the following rights have been designated: The author(s) or his/her assignee(s) owns the copyright to the work he/she writes for the NASIG proceedings. The author(s) or his/her assignee(s) owns the copyright to the work he/she writes for the NASIG proceedings.  Haworth Press owns rights to first print publication in the NASIG proceedings issue of Serials Librarian….  NASIG owns the rights to produce a NASIGNET version in suitable forms for reading by members: , listserv, Gopher, WWW, and WAIS access. … AUTHOR REUSE OF WORK The author(s) may not submit this work to any other journal or book publication until after it has appeared in the NASIG proceedings issue of the Serials Librarian. The author(s) may not submit this work to any other journal or book publication until after it has appeared in the NASIG proceedings issue of the Serials Librarian. Author(s) retain the right to reprint their work as it appears in the NASIG proceedings issue of the Serials Librarian as part of classroom handouts, reading room reserve, and traditional interlibrary loans. All other policy regarding permission for reprinting are decided by the NASIG Board.”

Publisher arrangements with scholarly societies “…The [Society] would retain ownership of the title of, and copyright in, the journal, with complete control over editorial policy…. Authors would be required to assign copyright to the [Society], or to issue an exclusive license to publish their article in all forms.” From a recent proposal from a commercial publisher to publish a scholarly society’s journal.

What are the issues? ► Access to scholarly information ► Authors rights to use their own intellectual property

Sherpa ► SHERPA aims to investigate issues to do with the future of scholarly communication and publishing. In particular, it is initiating the development of openly accessible institutional digital repositories of research output in a number of research universities. These so-called 'e-print archives' will contain papers by researchers from the participating institutions. ► The project will investigate the IPR, quality control and other key management issues associated with making the research literature freely available to the research community. It will also investigate technical questions, including interoperability between repositories and digital preservation of e-prints. ► This site also hosts the Publishers Copyrights Listings (ROMEO) service, which lists publisher's copyright transfer agreements. Publishers Copyrights Listings (ROMEO)Publishers Copyrights Listings (ROMEO) ► SHERPA: Securing a Hybrid Environment for Research Preservation and Access. ► SHERPA is funded by JISC and CURL. It is hosted by the University of Nottingham. JISCCURLUniversity of NottinghamJISCCURLUniversity of Nottingham ►

Creative Commons ► ► “…a single goal unites Creative Commons' current and future projects: to build a layer of reasonable, flexible copyright in the face of increasingly restrictive default rules. “